Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Shed a Tear for Orson Scott Card

Poor Orson Scott Card. Because evil people like us insist on criticizing him when he says incredibly stupid and bigoted things, he’s facing the greatest injustice in the history of all injustices. Slavery? Pffft. The Holocaust? That was nothing compared to how terribly he’s being treated. Maurine Proctor lays out the case in Meridian, a Mormon magazine.

John J. Miller said, “Many left-of-center pundits dismiss Card as a social pariah — a gay-bashing bigot and possibly even a racist — simply because he is a Mormon who has had the gall to oppose same-sex marriage. ‘Card’s views are ugly,’ complained Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post in a column that calls to boycott the movie on account of the author of the novel it’s based on. Petri came down on the side of seeing the film — see it despite the ‘visible intolerance’ of Card, she said — but others are less certain.

*sniff* Someone called his views “ugly” and said that people could choose whether to see a movie he wrote or not. Have you no decency, ma’am? At long last, have you no decency? And of course, it’s only because he’s Mormon and opposes same-sex marriage. It can’t be because he thinks same-sex marriage is such an unbelievable threat that he has called for a revolution if the government recognizes their legality:

Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary…

What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

And it can’t be because he has argued in favor of keeping laws against homosexuality on the books in case someone “flagrantly violates” them (he actually thinks that was a “liberal and tolerant view”). And it can’t be because he offers up bizarre, deranged fantasies about how Obama is going to make himself a dictator like this:

How far might he take his dictatorial disposition? Is there any plausible way for him to remain as president for life, like the dictators he so admires and envies in Russia, China, and the Muslim world?

At first glance, the idea is absurd. The U.S. military would never accept such a thing. Nor would the people. Nor would …

But wait. Let’s think about this. Is there any way that Barack Obama could remain president forever, the way Putin has held on to power in Russia?…

So as a science fiction writer and a student of history, allow me to spin a plausible scenario about how, like Augustus Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler, and Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama could become lifetime dictator without any serious internal opposition…

You’d think that such a man could not possibly remain in office past the Constitutional limit of two terms — but I think the plan is already in place.

Look at how Hillary Clinton is being set up as the fall guy on Benghazi. Her lies under oath will destroy her in the run-up to the 2016 election, while the press will never hold Obama’s feet to the fire.

This is because Michelle Obama is going to be Barack’s Lurleen Wallace. Remember how George Wallace got around Alabama’s ban on governors serving two terms in a row? He ran his wife for the office. Everyone knew Wallace would actually be pulling the strings, even though they denied it.

Michelle Obama will be Obama’s designated “successor,” and any Democrat who seriously opposes her will be destroyed in the media the way everyone who contested Obama’s run for the Democratic nomination in 2008 was destroyed.

Oh, and Obama is going to use black gangs as his personal military to take over the country:

Barack Obama needs to have a source of military power that is under his direct control. Like Hitler, he needs a powerful domestic army to terrify any opposition that might arise.

Obama called for a “national police force” in 2008, though he never gave a clue about why such a thing would be necessary. We have the National Guard. We have the armed forces. The FBI. The Secret Service. And all the local and state police forces.

The trouble is that all of these groups have long independent histories and none of them is reliably under Barack Obama’s personal control. He needs Brown Shirts — thugs who will do his bidding without any reference to law.

Obama will claim we need a national police force in order to fight terrorism and crime. The Boston bombing is a useful start, especially when combined with random shootings by crazy people.

Where will he get his “national police”? The NaPo will be recruited from “young out-of-work urban men” and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities.

In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama’s enemies.

Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people “trying to escape” — people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama.

Nah, it’s just because he’s Mormon and opposes gay marriage.

The message is clear. If you oppose same-sex marriage you deserve to be name-called, blacklisted, stained and maligned. Your views will be distorted. You are free game for tomato-throwing. You will be described as hateful. You will be throttled and assaulted even by those who admire your work. Opposing same-sex marriage is an indelible stain on your character. Your career will be stymied or you may be fired from your job. Once you have expressed opposition to same-sex marriage, you are forever vulnerable from assault by those who, in theory, give lip service to tolerance.

What is particularly disturbing is since many who oppose same-sex marriage do it based on their religious views, this becomes another assault specifically on biblically-based religion. It is a direct blow against publicly expressing a point of view that is motivated by religious conscience.

The word you’re looking for here, Ms. Proctor — or actively trying to avoid — is criticized. Orson Scott Card is being criticized for saying egregiously idiotic things. He isn’t being thrown in a gulag or shipped off to Gitmo. He’s being criticized. I would suggest you get. the fuck. over it.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.”

With no hint of irony, self-awareness or memory of history, says the Mormon.

Not that simply. “Because he is a Mormon” includes a bunch of beliefs that are what “being a mormon” is commonly understood to bring. And those happen to be misogynistic. homophobic, and historically racist. If Card wants to disown those beliefs it ought to be easy enough for him to do so.

As it happens, if you advocate treating a certain category of people as subhuman, you are hateful, and you deserve to be loudly and consistently called out on it. I wouldn’t go as far as saying Card’s career should be destroyed, but I can sure as hell choose not to put any of my money in his pocket, and encourage others to do likewise. If he doesn’t like losing sales, maybe he should try being less of a bigoted ass.

Marcus ranum@2: I realize you meant to write more, but there’s an even deeper level of humor/irony/whatever in that.

Since OSC is so intolerant of people for simply being non-heterosexual, you would think he might realize that even if people hated him just for being mormon, that would be tit for tat, at the very least.

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy.

This was written by a woman from the cult that moved to Utah and fought a war against the USA so they could be…polygamists?

The one whose state is infested by dozens of polygamist cults spun off from the LDS church. It’s estimated that Utah has 60,000 polygamists.

In the Mormon’s baroque heaven, you have to be a polygamist to become a new god.

…and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy.

Mormonism has historically been a violent and murderous religion. If no one was looking and the Mormons could get to me, my lifespan would be measured in minutes. They hate a lot of categories of people and I belong to several of them.

Scientologists are very defensive (it’s a profitable con, after all) .. they do abuse the legal system… but their philosophies are so ridiculous as to be laughable, while Mormonism has been proven to be a conclusively NEGATIVE influence within the US.

George W. Bush called for and created a “Department of Homeland Security.” How is that not a national police force? It was created wholly out of cloth using more political appointees than any other portion of the Justice Department.

Where were these people who are crying and crying about lies that Obama never did when Good Ol’ GWB was ACTUALLY doing them?

What is particularly disturbing is since many who oppose same-sex marriage do it based on their religious views, this becomes another assault specifically on biblically-based religion. It is a direct blow against publicly expressing a point of view that is motivated by religious conscience.

I wonder what the Mormon response would be if a Christian author that described their “religion” as one of the worst forms of heresy, that they were little better than Satan-worshippers, and that Mormons should not be in positions of power so they can’t influence the culture into thinking Mormonism is an appropriate “lifestyle choice.” Do we really think they’d just sit back and say “it’s a difference of opinion”?

He also supports the view that intent is magic (that’s kind of a running thing in the ender’s game books I’m told though I’ve only read the first one). That if you have a good intent and are a good person the results don’t matter. see http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm for a discussion of the morality/ethics.

What is particularly disturbing is since many who oppose same-sex marriage do it based on their religious views, this becomes another assault specifically on biblically-based religion. It is a direct blow against publicly expressing a point of view that is motivated by religious conscience

Other examples of points of view that are motivated by religious conscience:
– People of different colour should not date, marry, or even intermingle.
– Women should not be able to vote/drive/leave the house unless escorted by a male family member.
– Mormons are heretics and should be tortured until they renounce their heresy.
– Jews are Christ-killers and should be wiped from the face of the planet.
– Sick children should be prayed for and never taken to a doctor, even if their illness will likely cause their death.

Does she think people who espouse these opinions should not be open for criticism?

Wow, racism, homophobia, misogyny, AND paranoid delusions? Did Tea Party Christmas come early this year?

(Also, as a huge fan of sci-fi and a total geek, I’ve never once understood the appeal of the Ender books. I’m not claiming that liking them isn’t justifiable, just that I find the glowing recommendations I’ve gotten over the course of my life personally confusing. I found Nancy Kress’s Beggars series, which I read around the same time, much more interesting.)

This always reminds me of the verboten defense that an intolerant right-wing relative of mine often uses.
It goes something like this:
RWR: “I think gays/feminists/atheists/etc. should all be sent to the salt mines and shot.”
Me: “What a horrible thing to say!”
RWR: “Oh it’s verboten is it? Not allowed to speak the truth now, are we? How typical!”
The great thing about the verboten defence is that it makes you sound like the victim of censorship, while at the same time suggesting that your opponent is a Nazi, with completely unacceptable views.

In addition to the other quotes and links showing Card’s intolerance, here is another which I don’t think I’ve seen online; it’s from his afterword to a story called “Closing the Timelid”:

But I digress. Being a preacher at heart, I found that with this story I had written a homily of hedonism as self-destruction. Absurd as these people may seem, their obsession with a perverse pleasure is no stranger than any other pleasure that seduces its seekers from the society of normal human beings. Drug users, homosexuals, corporate takeover artists, steroid-popping bodybuilders and athletes—all such groups have, at some time or another, constructed societies whose whole purpose is celebrating the single pleasure whose pursuit dominates their lives, while it separates them from the rest of the world, whose rules and norms they resent and despise. Furthermore, they pursue their pleasure at the constant risk of self-destruction. And then they wonder why so many other people look at them with something between horror and distaste.

yeah, sure. that’s totally support for the idea the US was overrun with communists.

It’s totally support for the idea that communist agents occupied some very high positions in the US,

“On 20 December 1946, Gardner made the first break into the code, revealing the existence of Soviet espionage in the Manhattan Project. Venona messages also indicated that Soviet spies worked in Washington in the State Department, Treasury, Office of Strategic Services, and even the White House.”

I suppose you also think that justifies the McCarthy commission in your eyes?

johnathangrey: the Wikipedia article you cite gives absolutely ZERO support for the allegations of “communists trying to interfere in the legislative practices of states and the federal government.” Nor does it, or that empty Samizdata article, justify any of the McCarthyism you seem to be kinda sorta trying to maybe excuse. McCarthy’s accusations were based on bullshit and hysteria, not on actual intel from any source.

Being a preacher at heart, I found that with this story I had written a homily of hedonism as self-destruction. Absurd as these people may seem, their obsession with a perverse pleasure is no stranger than any other pleasure that seduces its seekers from the society of normal human beings.

Being a human liberationist at heart, I found that with OSC we have a typical Zombied religious fanatic. Absurd doesn’t describe these people, they are pathetic at best and dangerous at worst. Their obsession with an imaginary Sky Fairy and the Authoritarian Mind Control cult of Mormonism is no stranger than any other religious cult that demands that its members hate, fear, and oppress normal human beings.

Card is just babbling here. He assumes he has something worthwhile to say and we should care about it. He doesn’t and we don’t.

Considering the amount of Card dwells on this sort of subject matter (ranging from, say, the likes of Songmaster to “Hamlet’s Father”), I have to wonder what his real motivation is in writing this kind of crap.